


Angels Skating With Us

by only_freakin_donuts



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen, Ice Skating, Murdervision!!!, Parallels, rip Iris, rip Jiya's dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 08:52:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17464367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/only_freakin_donuts/pseuds/only_freakin_donuts
Summary: Denise just needs her kids out of the bunker for one afternoon so she can get some work done. So she gives them money to go ice skating. Jiya and Flynn bond over memories they have being on the ice with people they've since lost.





	Angels Skating With Us

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks @misscrazywriter321 for hatching this idea with me <3
> 
> I HIGHLY recommend you guys look up what a bunny hop is in figure skating so you can picture what's going on in this. (Also, it's called bunny hopping, the fact that Flynn, Mr. Tall Croatian Murder Tree, can't do something that sounds so innocent and child-like, is hilarious.) 
> 
> Obviously, he isn't dead here, I really don't know where this fits in canon? Sometime in Season 2, I guess.

When Denise has that look on her face, they all before run and hide. It meant something was about to happen, most likely at their expense. But, nobody’s brave enough to ask what that is.

“Why are you all looking at me like that?” Denise asks.   
Wyatt snickers, taking a sip of his coffee. “You’ve got the face. The ‘you have a plan face’ face.”  
“Last time you made that face you made us all deep clean this place,” Rufus adds. “The time before that you made us play Pictionary.”   
“Well, this time will be better than Pictionary,” Denise tells them, a satisfied smile on her face. “I hope you all have warm sweaters and socks.” She pulls two bills out of her pocket and hands them to Lucy. “You’re in charge of the group, this is for skate rentals.”

“Skate rentals?!” she, Rufus, and Wyatt ask at the same time. “Do you want an incapacitated team?” Lucy asks next. “Do you want an injured team?”   
“Speak for yourself,” Wyatt bluffs. “I played hockey for a few years as a kid, I can hold my own. It sounds fun.”   
“ _It sounds fun_ , who are you?” Lucy asks, mocking him only a little.   
“Well, it isn’t up for debate, I already arranged a transport. That money should get you all pairs of skates and warm drinks after. Okay?”   
“Certainly not okay,” Rufus wagers, “But, okay.” He looks to his girlfriend, she seems to be staring off into space (in itself, not unusual, but he was surprised she wasn’t objecting to physical activity. And the cold.) “You’re oddly complaint about this.”   
Jiya shrugs. “Some fresh air would be nice,” she admits. “And I know how to skate, so I won’t embarrass myself.”  
“Oh, and you’re saying I will?” he asks with a grin. They both knew he would.   
“Come on people, we don’t have all day, your ride will be here in fifteen minutes,” Denise objects. “Be safe, please. And have fun!”

-

“Nothing that ever started with _‘be safe and have fun’_ ever ended well,” Lucy mumbles, waiting in line with Flynn to get everyone skates. In one hand she had the money Denise had given her, in the other a Post-It with everyone’s shoe sizes.  
“Oh, will you give it a rest? Loosen the corset, Lucy, have a little fun,” Flynn tells her. “We’re off duty today.”  
Lucy mumbles something he can’t quite catch, as they get to the front and Flynn works the Post-It out from between her fingers to hand it to the high school kid behind the counter. They both mumble a thanks and head back to the rink, armed with 5 pairs of skates, varying in size and colour. 

“How do I know when these are too tight?” Rufus asks, lacing his right skate. “I kinda can’t feel my ankles.”  
“They’re supposed to feel like that,” Flynn and Jiya both answer. They acknowledge each other with a half smile, as Rufus shrugs it off and continues to try and wiggle his toes. “If they hurt when you start skating, you loosen them then,” Jiya adds, pulling him up from the bench.   
“Can you hold my hand?” Rufus asks sheepishly, as they paddle towards the ice.   
The group hears Jiya giggle. “Yes.”

“Do you guys need any help?” Flynn asks, looking at the two still tying their skates on.   
Lucy shakes her head. “You can go ahead, Flynn,” she tells him. “We’ll manage.”   
He nods curtly, and takes off for the rink. He didn’t really want to stick around with them. Jiya and Rufus were a little less insufferable. Sure, he didn’t understand half their jokes, but at least they weren’t obnoxiously touchy. 

At least, not when Rufus didn’t have blades attached to his big, clumsy feet. Right now he had two hands on his girlfriend’s arms, his feet sliding out from under him like a cartoon character, and his loud laugh echoing through the big, hollow rink. This was plain dangerous.

“Rufus,” Flynn starts, skating up to the couple with relative ease. “Bend your knees a little bit.”   
“Yes, I’ve been trying to tell him that,” Jiya says, trying not to laugh as she slides away from him slowly, hoping he won’t fall if she lets go. “There you go, you’re standing!”   
“I don’t think I can move,” Rufus admits.   
Jiya takes his hand, preparing to drag him around the rink with her. “You coming with us?” she asks Flynn.  
“If you don’t mind,” he answers. “You might need some help here anyways. I’ve taught a kid to skate before.” He tries not to feel sad, as he says that out loud for the first time today. It’s been on his mind since Denise set them on this venture this morning. His Iris, and their family skate Sundays. His wife, and their skating dates. His family, that wasn’t here on the ice with him today.   
Jiya just nods. She gets it. 

Slowly but surely, the trio make their way around the rink a few times, each time becoming a little less of a hazard. Rufus does get better, but his girlfriend and Flynn could still skate circles around him. And apparently Jiya could jump, too? She shrugged it off like it was nothing, but Rufus nor Flynn had any idea she had a background in recreational figure skating. Then they heard ice shredding behind them.  
“Rufus, I’m teaching Lucy the basics, you wanna come join? Give your girlfriend a chance to show off her skills without holding your hand?” Wyatt asks. 

That leaves Jiya with Flynn, the two that can actually manage on skates. “You wanna race?” Flynn asks, cracking a grin.   
“My expertise is the fancy stuff, not speed,” Jiya reminds him, setting up to race him anyways.  
“You said you wanted to run in high school, but the heart murmur stopped you. The heart murmur’s gone, take it away, speedy.”   
“I’m surprised you remember that,” she says. They barely knew each other when they’d had that discussion over dinner one night, about their high school selves, it had been one of the first nights Flynn lived with them in the bunker. It felt nice, for some reason.   
“I remember a lot of things,” he tells her. “Used to listening to children,” he says, almost under his breath.   
She doesn’t quite laugh in response, but she acknowledges what he said. His dark, quiet humour didn’t slip past her, she didn’t let it.   
“Alright, are you ready?” he asks. “And go!” 

Where Flynn learned to speed skate, they would never know. But in thirty seconds flat, Flynn’s on the other ride of the rink and Jiya’s 20 meters behind him, dusting snow off her knees from falling. “Okay, you won. You knocked me over with your super speed.”   
He skates back to her, helping her up. “Call me Barry Allen, I suppose,” he grins. He’s trying to get her humour. He’d like to think sharing a living quarters with her and Rufus, the two biggest nerds he’d ever met, had rubbed off on him a little. “You wanna know the trick, to gaining speed and not falling?” 

She doesn’t really listen to what he’s saying, but she listens to his tone, his tenderness. The way he moves his hands, the focus he holds in his eyes, his patience in explaining things in layman’s terms and manageable steps. He’s such a dad it hurts.   
“You’re really good, with teaching,” she tells him. She think she cuts him off, but, again, she hadn’t exactly been listening.   
He smiles. “Thank you,” he tells her. “I was teaching Iris to skate,” he admits. “She hadn’t quite gotten the hang of it yet, but she saw figure skating on the TV one day and decided she wanted to try it. And, you would know, you have to learn the basics before you can learn to jump and spin and all that. I don’t know she was planning to learn all that, I couldn’t teach her that. I wouldn’t know how to.”   
“Do you want me to teach you how to?” Jiya asks. “So you can teach her one day?”   
His smile spreads across his face and over to her, warming her soul. She still believed he’d get Iris back one day, that he would get the chance to teach her to figure skate. “Guess it couldn’t hurt to try,” he responds. “Unless I fall, of course.”  
“You might,” she admits. 

Rufus slowly made his way back over to the two, not falling, by some miracle. He even makes it over in time to see Flynn fall hard, 200 pounds thudding against the ice. There are more than a few people staring.   
“Was that an earthquake?” Wyatt calls out. “I think the Earth shook.”   
He pulls himself to his feet, rubbing his elbow in a spot that’s gonna leave a bruise, looking to Jiya like a kid searching for reassurance from a teacher. “You tried your best,” she tells him. “Now try again.”

“And there’s the aftershock,” Wyatt reports, feeling another, heavier thud.   
At this point Rufus has retreated back to his side, not wanting to be around while Flynn’s limbs were flying about. Especially not limbs with blades attached to them. “You guys okay?” he calls out, having noticed Jiya and Flynn are both, uh, off their feet.   
“We’ll live,” Jiya responds, sounding sore. Flynn had taken her down with him this time. Looked like they were both going back to the bunker black and blue.   
As Flynn rises to his feet, he mutters something about her trying to kill him, something he didn’t think she’d catch. “I am not trying to kill you,” she quickly disputes. “It’s just figure skating.”   
“I am going to die here and my cause of death is going to be ‘Jiya is teaching me to bunny hop’,” he grumbles. “I’m old, you know.”   
“You were a part of the NSA,” she reminds him. “You were in the Army. You are a time traveller who is helping to take down a crazy creepy terrorist group.”  
“Ah but I am _not_ Tonya Harding.”   
“You don’t have to do this,” she points out. “I’m helping you out, but if you wanna whine about it…”  
He huffs, a cloud releasing into the cold air. “One more shot at bunny hopping it is.”

“You’re so _close_ ,” Jiya emphasizes, watching him not fall, but stumble on his landing. One more shot has _obviously_ turned to eight, he never knew when to fold ‘em. “You wanna call it a day?”   
“No, I want to master it.”   
Jiya nods, hands in her pockets, all tangled up in her thoughts. She understood Flynn’s pain, earlier, when he talked about his memories of his daughter on the ice, because she felt them too. What he said hit a nerve. Her dad and his red and green laces on his hockey skates. She’d always wanted to master everything right away too, she’d been a perfectionist from an early age (if you met her mother, you’d understand). He always made sure she pushed herself just hard enough, but not too hard. In figure skating, in academics, in life, really. So, she tried to do the same today. Push her figure skating student just hard enough, but not too hard.   
“C’mon, Flynn. We can come back another day. You’ve tried your best. We’ll get hot chocolate.”

They took the money from Lucy and sat in view of the rink with two cups of marshmallow and chocolate warmth.   
“Who’s your Iris?” Flynn asks, watching the gears in that brain of hers turn. “Your dad?”   
She looks up, again surprised he remembers that detail of hers.   
“Do you associate skating with him?” he prompts.   
She nods. “Yeah, he taught me to skate. He worked extra time so we had the money to enroll me in the figure skating club, and took me to all my competitions and recitals and practices. He advocated for me when my mom didn’t think all the effort was worth it. He said if it made me smile, it was worth it. Even when it didn’t make me smile, it made me cry cause my feet hurt or my legs hurt or I was tired of working for it, he still insisted it was worth it. Then he told me to lace up my skates and get back on the ice.”   
Flynn smiles. “He was a good father,” he says simply.  
“I know you would’ve done the same for Iris,” Jiya tells him. “You’re a good dad too.”   
Flynn shrugs. “If she was telling me she didn’t want to practice that day I probably would cave and take her to the movies,” he admits. “That doesn’t instill much perseverance.”  
“It instills self care, though, knowing when to take a break and relax. Then maybe she wouldn’t end up skipping practice to smoke with her friends behind the arena.”  
He actually looks shocked. He genuinely hadn’t expected that out of her; she was a nerd in high school, she was a nerd now. “You didn’t! Jiya Marri the teenage rebel, I’ll be damned.”  
She cracks a grin. “Only a few times,” she admits. “Don’t tell my mom. She’d still kill me if she knew.”   
“Scouts honor,” he says, holding up his left hand mockingly. 

“His name was Isaac, right, your dad?” he confirms.  
She nods, as he holds up his cocoa cup. “To Isaac and Iris.”   
She clinks her cup with his. “To Iris and Isaac.” 

Lucy and the boys come up from behind Flynn, their skates slung over their shoulders. “You guys ready to head home?” Lucy asks.   
Flynn nods, getting to his feet. “Jiya and I are coming back soon, practice makes perfect when it comes to bunny hopping. You guys wanna come?”   
Lucy laughs. “I can barely stay on my feet much less bunny hop. You guys have fun, though. And be safe.”  
“We have angels skating with us, Lucy, we’ll be just fine.”


End file.
